


Strange Little Shadows

by This_world_of_beautiful_monsters



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: 1 Sentence Fiction, 50 Sentences, BDSM, Brainwashing, Incest, Love Triangles to Polyamory, Masochism, OT3, Other, Polyamory, Potential Self Harm?, T-Cest, Threesome - F/M/M, Trauma, potentially unhealthy relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 04:34:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30049977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/This_world_of_beautiful_monsters/pseuds/This_world_of_beautiful_monsters
Summary: What they have is by no means perfect, but it is theirs, and it is what kept them standing when so many things have crumbled.Set Delta.
Relationships: Karai/Leonardo/Raphael (TMNT)
Kudos: 7





	Strange Little Shadows

1\. **Air**

There's a kind of desperation in the way they make love, in kisses that suck the air from each other's lungs and the scrape of nails along scales and skin.

**2\. Apples**

Leo sees food and instinctively looks for little brothers to divide it amongst, Raph sees food and instinctively wonders if he's going to have to cram it down a reluctant sibling's throat, Karai sees food and instinctively wonders if someone has poisoned it, and they share the fruit carefully, thinking about the ways their childhoods have shaped them.

**3\. Beginnings**

The first times they kiss each other all come at the end of a fight, are accompanied by sweat and bruises, flavored with blood and teeth.

**4\. Bugs**

The worms hiss in their heads, murmuring that the blue-masked turtle who looks at them so pleadingly is _weak foolish doomed traitor prey_ , and years later the memories will leave them feeling nauseous.

**5\. Coffee**

Her eyes remind them of coffee--dark, deep, able to turn from sweet to bitter and back in an instant, bringing them to life the way Donnie's precious mixture does for him.

**6\. Dark**

The line between ninja and mutant is when the shadows stop becoming your weapon and become the only place where you will every be truly safe; this truth hits Raph and Leo all over again as they watch Karai try to comes to terms with it.

**7\. Despair**

She ties a red or blue mask around her neck and pulls tight, yanking until her eyes burn and she doesn't feel like she's joined them among the dead anymore.

**8\. Doors**

Her eyes go blank, doors sealing against them, and Raph hates her for the way Leo flinches at the sight--hates, too, the strange flash of hurt he feels when she turns away.

**9\. Drink**

Skin flushed and eyes bright, they dance long after the others have exhausted themselves; Karai and Raph whirl Leo back and forth between them until he inevitably throws up.

**10\. Duty**

Leo has a _duty_ to protect his family, no matter what the personal cost, so obviously it should be him to make the sacrifice; he doesn't get why they don't _understand_ that, and he's so busy fighting with Raph he doesn't realize he's being tag-teamed until Karai sneaks up behind him and hits him with a nerve pinch.

**11\. Earth**

Raph remembers the day it first dawned on him that he and his brothers were quite literally buried alive, the day Leo held him until he remembered how to breathe, and as he watches Leo try to help Karai bear the weight of her own scales he's struck by a terrifying wave of empathy for her.

**12\. End**

Things don't last with Mona or Shinigami, hard as Raph and Karai try, and they find themselves going back to someone who for better or worse doesn't mind being cut with their broken edges.

**13\. Fall**

The sight of Leo in Foot regalia, empty eyes peering at them through a black mask, leaves Raph and Karai united for the first time in their fear and rage and readiness to tear down the world if it means _getting him back._

**14\. Fire**

There are times when Raph thinks the anger will burn him apart from the inside out, times when he thinks he wants it to, but then Karai squeezes his hand or Leo pulls him close and he wants to believe he can come back to earth, for them and the rest of his family.

**15\. Flexible**

Karai's growing control over her serpentine body puts new limits to the word _flexible,_ but she likes to see how far the others can bend, too.

**16\. Flying**

The whole family heads to Japan in a private plane to scatter Master Splinter's ashes, and Raph jokingly suggests to Karai and Leo that they should try entering the "Mile-High-Club" rather than see them keep staring at that stupid urn; Leo punches him for his disrespect, of course, but Karai would have considered taking him up on it if Casey and Donnie hadn't ended up beating them to the punch in their own stress-and-minibar-fueled haze.

**17\. Food**

"Don't even think about it," Raph says when he and Leo first bring Karai to his pigeons, and his eyes are so bright when he watches them take off Karai (almost) forgets how plump and juicy they would taste.

**18\. Foot**

The clan has left its marks on her, but Karai will not relinquish her crown for them (even if she considers it in her weaker moments) and for the most part they can all live with that.

**19\. Grave**

One day two of them will be left standing over the body of the other, and then it'll be just one standing alone, and none of them are really willing to face that eventuality.

**20\. Green**

She picks bloody green scales off her sword and reminds herself that she hates them, hates them _all,_ especially that manipulative creep Leonardo and that psychotic bastard Raphael (she tries not think of how much of herself she sees in Raph's rage and Leo's cunning, how alive she feels when they fight).

**21\. Head**

Their heads are full of ghosts and monsters, of breaking bones and poisonous fury, but even if they can't kiss each other's bad memories out of existence they can at least help each other forget for a little while.

**22\. Hollow**

Leo likes to make himself into a vessel where Raph and Karai can pour their anger and grief, likes being a body that they can control after they spent so much time on leashes, likes the sense of being punished for his mistakes without endangering the team in the process; he relishes next morning's soreness and bruises and bloody bite marks, and they have to keep him from absentmindedly picking at them.

**23\. Honor**

If Raph hears one more word about it, he's going to jump out of a window, and he lets them know.

**24.** **Hope**

No matter how many times Karai leaves, no matter how many times Raph spits and rages and runs off, Leo always has faith that they'll come back.

**25\. Light**

They watch the sun rise together, the three of them, hearts full of desperate hope and something else; when they take each other's hands it feels so natural they're all a little frightened.

**26\. Lost**

She has been lost in her own brain more times than she count, drowning under the weight of self-loathing and metal worms and mutagen madness, but she clawed back to reality ever time; and more often than not she was guided by the fierce light of green and blue eyes.

**27\. Metal**

The handcuffs are specially made for Leo, an addition to the ensemble of collar and blindfold and gag, and he's surprised by how relaxing he feels when they _click_ closed across his wrists and he gives up his fears, his worries, so the others can take him apart.

**28\. New**

Raph doesn't understand why he hates the way Leo looks at this strange, beautiful new girl so much, or why the way they both look at _him_ sometimes makes his skin tingle.

**29\. Old**

Things changed when Karai swung her sword at Tiger Claw's head, when she fell into the mutagen, when her father died....now, she feels them changing again in this tangle of flesh and sweat and need, only this time she doesn't want to go back to the old way of things.

**30\. Peace**

They're all drunk when Leo suggests that maybe the others don't _have_ to fight over him, not if they don't _want_ to, and the really crazy thing about his suggestion is that it still seems to make sense in the cold light of day.

**31\. Poison**

They've felt the sting of her venom, but that's nothing compared to what comes off her razor-sharp tongue if she's pissed; Raph matches vitriol with vitriol, while Leo's got a masterful facade of icy indifference handy if either of them goes too far.

**32\. Pretty**

The way Raph's eyes flicker and glow wildest green when he's angry or excited, the shimmer of Leo's skin in the reflected light from his sword blades, the way Karai cycles through bodies and stances with an equally balletic grace....this is beauty to them.

**33\. Rain**

The water pools and splashes around their feet as they dance, like another trio in a cheery musical, only they have swords instead of umbrellas, and instead of singing it's two of them bleeding, begging for the other to _come back home._

**34\. Regret**

They feel it over so many things; the only way they can bear it is to keeping looking forward.

**35\. Roses**

They all steal or buy bouquets from different shops for Valentine's Day, and end up covering the bed with a tangle of yellow, red, and white petals; they stay there for days until Leo gets fed up with the mess and cleans them while the others are out, taking their complaints with rolled eyes.

**36\. Secret**

Their father lectures them on the dangers of brothers fighting over a woman; Raph flares at the idea of him _liking_ Karai, why would his father think _that,_ and Leo holds his tongue; neither of them reveal their growing suspicion that this is a lot more complicated than that.

**37\. Snakes**

Everyone in the family has a different name for them--Wacko and Jacko, Scully and Mulder, Lotus and Blossom--but Raph is the one who pets them and coos over Karai's snakes, so he's the one who gets to pick the official moniker, preferably something to make Leo blush.

**38\. Snow**

Karai covers Leo in a tangle of coils as the sudden flakes pours down upon them, murmuring to their shivering, blank-eyed lover, while Raph barks at Donnie to bring the fucking Shellraiser _now._

**39\. Solid**

She wakes up from memories of the Shredder's rough, crinkly skin and grounds herself by touching their shells, by feeling how very different their bodies are from the burnt wraith that hunts her dreams.

**40\. Spring**

That thing about animal heats is probably bullshit, but the scent of young flowers and the glimmer of fresh leaves on the farm make them feel more alive nonetheless, and Karai's glad she let the others drag her up here.

**41\. Stable**

Nights that Karai doesn't spend staring at her reflection in a dead man's helmet, that Raph doesn't spend breaking himself or others on the street, that Leo doesn't spend talking to ghosts in the dojo, are good nights; even if they hurt each other sometimes, they still feel better than they would apart.

**42\. Strange**

Raph hates Karai for what she's done, for the venom on his skin and the pain in Leo's eyes, which is why he finds it so fucking _weird_ that he misses her in a quiet, hollow way.

**43\. Summer**

They lie in a sun-warmed field and watch the light dance over each others' scars, adoring them with butterfly kisses; Leo tries to hold still enough for real butterflies to land him, but the others keep him too distracted for that.

**44\. Taboo**

The others are confused, maybe even repulsed, but at this point they couldn't break apart if they tried.

**45\. Ugly**

They are monsters from fairytales, all strange hulking forms and inescapable green scales; they will never be able to cover themselves in a normal skin the way Karai can, but this does not bother her.

**46\. War**

Raph may be the "angry" one, but in times of war it is Leo and Karai who wreak havoc with cold-eyed fury, and if he does not forgive them--well, it will hurt, but not as bad as it would to lose him or one of the others.

**47\. Water**

Leo wins every single one of their breath-holding competitions, at least until the others start teaming up to break his concentration.

**48\. Welcome**

"We got you a welcome-back present, Princess," Raph says, taking her by the hand and leading her to the bedroom where a bound, gagged Leo waits, eyes sparkling with the same relief Raph's trying to hide.

**49\. Winter**

The season has ugly memories for all them, of breaking bones and shattered windows and long mad nights in a snake's skin, and they find themselves drawing closer together in attempt to create newer, better ones. 

**50\. Wood**

When you've got three people in the relationship, breaking the bed becomes an increasingly realistic possibility, and after the second embarrassing late-night visit to Donnie's workshop, they decide to just try switching to metal.


End file.
